When on October 8, 1967, Che was assassinated in Bolivia, Latin America plunged into despair. A century and a half after the beginning of many of its independence wars; the continent was bleeding economically and physically. Everywhere in its geography, guerrilla struggles, labor and student movements and nonconformity proliferated. The old "status quo" stagnated, and with the exception of Cuba with its revolutionary triumph of 1959, our continent and its islands constituted the United States' backyard.

Illustrious thinkers condemned that neocolonial immobilism - explicit or discreet, but always obvious - and suffice it to say that the practice was that a President was elected, and therewith, his first visit was to Washington to give an account of his future administration. Throughout the twentieth century, events succeeded each other in Latin American history, from the struggle of Augusto César Sandino in Nicaragua, who ended up by being assassinated, to the events of the Nationalist government of Guatemala, which ended with the coup that overthrew its president Jacobo Arbenz.  We should remember, among the various works inviting to reflection on Latin American reality, the essay entitled "El tiburon y las sardinas” by José Arévalo.

After the triumph of the Cuban Revolution in 1959, things began to change. There was a strengthening in the political forces of the Latin American left, the example of Cuba and its struggle for sovereignty acted as an incentive to know that there were things that remained to be done in these lands south of the Rio Grande. That part of history is well known and we have witnessed or experienced many coups, political assassinations, election fraud, and acts of state terrorism. WE should remember the outrages of the military dictatorships in Brazil, Chile, Paraguay, Argentina and Bolivia, like the despicable semi-dynastic dictatorship of the Somoza clan in Nicaragua or that of Trujillo in the Dominican Republic and the subsequent invasion by the United States to snatch the legitimate presidency from Juan Bosch.

Obviously, the policy of force was, for the Latin American oligarchies in alliance with the empire, the most obvious sign of weakness.

The presence of the heroic guerrilla Ernesto Che Guevara in Bolivia is historically the most elevated sign of Latin American resistance and its determination to achieve its second and final independence. It was actually to achieve, more than a new independence, the one that had been thwarted so many times.

Che was captured while being wounded and, once imprisoned, was assassinated by a henchman of General Barrientos, following strict orders of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). The bullet that ended the life of the Heroic Guerrilla only served for Che to begin to live differently, in such a way that he embodied Latin America’s patriotic thinking with more strength. Che’s presence increased over and over and this new way of living couldn’t be extinguished by a murderous hand. He began to live in ideas and to spread as the most important contemporary sign of the cause of independence, as an immortal symbol, because just ideas do not die or can be killed.

October 8, 2010, marked forty-two years of the capture and assassination at La Higuera of our unforgettable Che Guevara. The sorrow for the early loss of a courageous, selfless man of profound thinking is justified even after so long. Current events offer a new reading: That Che is alive and that he lives in every honest and patriotic person in the world, and that today his enemies fear him more than ever.

After his death in Bolivia and the beginning of his new life in the hearts and minds of honest people of clean hearts in all of Latin America and the Caribbean, Che lives along with Bolivar, Martí, Morelos, O'Higgins, San Martin and many others who were thinkers and doers of the ideal of a sovereign and united Latin America.

Latin America and the Third World are no longer what they were fifty, forty or thirty years ago. As the Heroic Guerrilla expressed once, "for this great humanity has said “enough” has started to move forward."

We are convinced that, with his manly example, he leads this unstoppable march.

Translated by Daysi Olano

!joomlacomment 4.0 Copyright (C) 2009 Compojoom.com . All rights reserved."